


The Pirate Ship Winter

by Cragamiel



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Anne Bonny AU, F/M, Slow Burn, eventual angst, just you know kind of PotC-y westeros, kind of?, still in westeros
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-01-16 06:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18515485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cragamiel/pseuds/Cragamiel
Summary: As the Westerosi Civil War finally begins to wind down, Gendry Waters, bastard son of King Robert, finds himself on the run from the new queen Cersei. He falls in with a pirate crew captained by a girl passing as a boy, known only as Arry.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the Lannisters raze Dragonstone, Gendry flees and is picked up by a pirate ship--a pirate ship captained by a girl who goes by Arry. 
> 
> Also, there are rowing jokes.

Gendry’s back ached and each pull on the weathered oars drove splinters deeper into his palms. Still, he kept rowing, his eyes trained on the smoke rising from Dragonstone. Looming large against the setting sun, it seemed so close, as if despite all the rowing he hadn’t moved since that morning when Davos set him in the boat.

Straight south, Davos had told him. Row south along the shore, and he would come back into the crownlands. But a current had caught him only an hour out from shore, and swept him east toward open sea. 

For a while, Gendry had tried to row against it. But all too soon, it set even his heavy shoulders to aching, and he gave in. Let it carry me away, he thought grimly, watching the smoke billow with the wind. I haven’t got anywhere else to go, after this. 

A noise broke him from his dark thoughts—a shout, thin and far off behind him. He pulled the oars from the water and twisted his torso around to look—and found a ship approaching, her sails caught full of wind. Relief pumped through him for a glorious second—he forgot his aching hands and arms, and his whole body felt light—until he saw her black banners. Pirates.

All the same, he pulled in his oars and waited for the ship to approach. He wasn’t going to outrun it in a rowboat. And it certainly was coming for him; he watched as her bow swung just a few points north, bringing her side towards him as she drew near. Despite himself, he admired her grace as her keel cut through the waves, her sails shifting under the crew’s hands to catch the right angle of wind. 

Soon, a dozen faces were peering down at him over the side, shouting. He didn’t even try to make out what they were saying. He only heard one voice, ringing clear above the others, crying, “Lower the ladders! Take him up! Step to!” And half a moment later, a ladder came clattering down the ship’s hull. 

Gendry rowed hard toward it, forgetting his pains. He passed into the shadow of the ship, sighing as the sun’s glare was finally lifted from him. Taking care about his balance, he stood, gripped the ladder, and stepped off the boat with a feeling of vindication, wishing he could sink the damn thing behind him. Only a day he had spent upon it, but somehow it felt like years. 

His brightened mood carried him quickly up the ladder. At the top, several hands reached over the railing to grip his shirt and haul him onto the deck, and he remembered in a flash that they were strangers. Who knew who they were—or, more importantly, which side they fought for? If they were in the pay of the Lannisters, he might as well jump back overboard. 

Doesn’t do any good to worry about it now, he told himself, getting to his feet. He looked around, glancing over the threadbare and varied tunics worn by the crew, over their skinny limbs and overgrown faces. Probably not Lannisters, then. Lannister soldiers ate better, and dressed better too.

Someone cleared their throat, and Gendry turned back to see a slight figure standing before him, hands on his hips. The top of his head barely reached his shoulders, and beneath his baggy clothing he seemed to be skin and bones. Gendry guessed he would be able to pick him up with one hand—but the fierce look in his grey eyes told him that no such thing would be permitted. That, and the way the eyes of the crew followed him, told him that this was their captain.

Gendry blinked down at him. He was tiny—a stripling boy. This was a pirate captain?

“Who are you, then?” the captain asked him, and he recognized the clear voice he had heard before. It sounded a little strained, as if he were pitching his voice lower than its natural timbre.

Gendry took another look at him. His clothes were loose ,and his hair was shorn short, its ragged ends only just fringing his ears. Could it be? Gendry thought with a jolt. Was this… a girl? Disguised as a boy? Could the crew not tell? 

Best to tread carefully, he decided, until he knew what was going on. “My name is Gendry.”

“I didn’t ask your name. I asked who you were.” She pointed past him, towards the wreck of Dragonstone. “You’re running. Why? Who did you fight for?”

He didn’t want to tell her everything. “I was a blacksmith for Stannis Baratheon.”

The girl searched his eyes for a moment. He fought the urge to look away, until finally she nodded and released him. “As long as you’re not with the Lannisters. We’ll drop you off at the next port.” She paused, looking him over. “Blacksmith, you said? You’re strong. We could do with another set of hands. I’ll expect you to earn your keep ‘til we put in.”

“Serve with your crew, you mean?”

“Of course that’s what I mean.”

“I—uh, well—” The last time Gendry had been on a sailing ship, he’d been a guest, sleeping in a tiny aft cabin while Baratheon men worked the sails. He didn’t know the first thing about how to sail.

“You can earn your keep, or we can put you back out on the drink. This isn’t a passenger ship. Take your pick.”

Gendry shook his head, hard. “I’ll serve.”

“Good.” She jerked her head toward Dragonstone. “Is there anyone else that got out?”

Gendry turned, staring out over the water at the castle that had been his home, however begrudgingly, for the last year. The waves were empty of any other vessel. “No,” he said, hoping he was wrong. Davos, at least, deserved to have gotten out. But he knew the old man wouldn’t run without his lord, or at least Shireen.

“Then report to the galley. Hot Pie will find you a berth. Rest tonight. Tomorrow, see Lommy. He’s first mate, he’ll find you work.” Her footsteps receded, and the crew dispersed as the began calling out orders. “Haul up the ladder, boys! Bring us about, and be quick about it!” 

The sailors scattered. One or two clapped him on the shoulder or welcomed him aboard, but they had more important things to do, stowing the ladder and trimming the sails to bring the ship back around. Gendry stood by the rail for a moment longer, watching as Dragonstone finally disappeared behind the veil of smoke. 

He tore his gaze away. He’d lost his home before. He could deal with losing it again. So he turned his back and stumbled across the ship’s pitching deck to the stairs, yawning dark against the sunbathed wood. 

Below, he found himself in a cramped hold swinging with hammocks and stuffed with barrels and crates. To the fore, he saw a curtain, swinging as the ship rolled, and beyond heard low chatter. A whiff of spice reached him. That was the galley, then. He picked his way through the hold, peering at the cargo. He couldn’t tell what the pirates were carrying, but he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t curious, either. 

It was a strange ship he’d landed on, after all. A girl captain, barely a woman, and no one even knew. 

How could it be possible that no one knew? A few sailors slept in their hammocks, and he eyed them as he passed. Could they be so dense? He supposed with her clothes and hair like that, it was harder to tell. Still, he’d known, and he had to admit, most people had never counted him among the particularly clever. His talents had always been more physical. 

He checked his belt. His hammer still hung there from the leather thong he’d begged off Sulvan, the tanner. He rested his hand upon its head as he stepped through the curtain to the galley. 

A fat young man looked up from a pot of stew, hung over a large cauldron bolted into the floor. Behind him, a few men sitting on benches stirred, glanced at him, and returned to their meals. 

“You’re the new one, then?” the fat one asked, grinning. “They call me Hot Pie. You hungry?”

“No. The, uh, the captain—”

“Captain Arry, he’s called,” Hot Pie told him, leaning down to sip from a ladle full of stew. 

“Captain Arry.” It wasn’t an intimidating name, for a pirate captain. “He seems… young.”

“Oh, he is. Younger than me, I think, but he knows how to use that sword of his.”

“Is that all that makes him captain? His sword?”

A couple of the men at the back lifted their heads at this. Gendry couldn’t read the looks on their faces, but he didn’t like them. 

Hot Pie glanced back at them. “Oh, that’s a long story. What was it the captain needed?”

“He said for you to find me a berth.”

“Oh, right, a berth. You don’t want to sleep on the deck, I guess.” Hot Pie laughed, then turned to the other men and gestured at the pot. “There’s more here for you if you want it. I’ll be back.”

Gendry let Hot Pie bustle him back out into the main hold. “Don’t talk about the captain in front of them,” he whispered. “Bad idea. Very bad idea.”

Gendry frowned at him over his shoulder. “Why’s that? And them in particular? Or any of them?”

Hot Pie shook his head. “I’ll tell you later. Come on, there should be an empty berth or two around here.”

“There’s one.”

“No, you don’t want that one. Move, move, down there. Those are better. Pick one of those.”

They had passed several unclaimed hammocks, Gendry judged. Some weren’t even fastened properly, their ends trailing on the ground like tired ghosts, while others looked threadbare and abandoned. “Aren’t there enough crew on board?”

“Later,” Hot Pie insisted. “There. What’d the captain say to do after you got your berth?”

Gendry scrunched up his face, trying to remember. “Rest, I think.”

“Then do that, and I’ll see you later.” Hot Pie retreated back towards the galley. 

He shook his head, but heaved himself into his hammock. It swayed with the motion of the boat, and with a sigh Gendry let his sore shoulders relax against its ropes. 

He wasn’t sure what to make of Hot Pie, all that about the crew, and him not answering any of his questions. Maybe it was to do with Captain Arry being a girl. Maybe some of the crew knew, and some didn’t, or maybe they all knew and pretended not to. 

What kind of ship was this, anyway? 

He squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe it would have been better to stay on Dragonstone—but no. If he had, he’d be dead, or worse, Cersei Lannister would have him. A pirate ship was better. Even a strange one.

***

The next morning found a bleary-eyed Gendry slogging along after Lommy, the ship’s first mate, trying to learn how to do anything properly aboard a ship. He didn’t know what anything was, he managed to tie his hands into the lines instead of knotting them, and he still hadn’t even gained his sea legs. 

“Pathetic,” Lommy said, not bothering to hide his glee. “You can’t do a thing. Don’t let the captain see you bumbling around like that.”

It wasn’t even noon, but Gendry had had enough of this boy. A stripling himself, without even a wisp of a beard, but with a tongue sharper than the bitter old men Gendry had known in Flea Bottom. 

But even if he didn’t like him, the boy was first mate, and Gendry could well see that he knew how to sail. But he wasn’t about to admit that out loud.

All the same, his temper moved his mouth for him. “Why? What does it matter to me what some tiny—” He bit his tongue. He wouldn’t out the girl, no matter how tired he was, or how much Lommy was grating on him. 

“Captain’s a great warrior, he is,” Lommy told him with a wide-eyed stare. “Learned from the First Sword of Braavos.”

“Isn’t the First Sword of Braavos in Braavos?”

Lommy waved a hand. “He was First Sword. Then he was a pirate, and he taught Captain Arry how to swordfight. He can cut the hair from your manhood and make it feel like a woman’s touch.”

Gendry restrained a laugh. “Who? The First Sword, or the Captain?”

“Oh—er—both of them! He taught the Captain, I told you!”

“How do you know he can cut the hair from your manhood? Did he do for yours?”

“I—no!” Lommy scowled at him. “I’m not letting him see my manhood.”

“So how do you know, then?”

“I just—I do! I’ve seen him with a sword. You haven’t, though, have you?” he added with a sneer. “And anyway, quit gabbling, I’ve told you to trim the jib.”

“What in the seven hells is a jib?”

A chorus of jeering laughter rang out behind him. Gendry turned to find a trio of sailors, all matted with brine and grime, sneering at him. “Couldn’t find his own arse if no one stuck it for him,” one called. 

“Been at it all day, and doesn’t know what a jib is,” said another. “Captain’ll be disappointed.”

The one in the middle laid eyes on the hammer at Gendry’s waist. “He thinks this is a carpenter’s shop,” he said, pointing. “Or, no—what’d you tell the captain you were? A blacksmith. He thinks a ship’s a forge.” As the others laughed, he stepped closer. “Give us the hammer. You don’t need it here. What do you say, Lommy? Does he need it?”

Lommy grinned. “I don’t think he does, no.” 

Gendry gripped its head, his heart pounding. He’d cave their skulls in if he had to, to keep them from his hammer, but he didn’t like to think what the captain would do to him after.

The sailor noticed. “What’s it matter, anyhow? It’s just a hammer. Give it here, man. Maybe it’ll lighten the ship a little, get us to port faster. There’s whores waiting for me. They dream about me even with another man’s—”

“It’s my hammer, and I’m keeping it.” Gendry glared at him, pulling it from its loop. His hand had worn the handle smooth, and with relief he let it fall into its usual grip.

The middle sailor’s lip curled, revealing thoroughly blackened teeth. “You gonna fight me, boy?” he snarled, and lunged. 

His hand shoved Gendry’s hammer up, and his head collided solidly with Gendry’s middle, blowing the air from him. Gendry brought his knee up into his face, but then the other two were on him and he knew no more. All was flying fists, and grunts, and swears, and a clear voice ringing above it all—

“Idiots! Get off! What kind of stupid—”

A sharp pain lashed like fire across his backside, and with an undignified yelp Gendry sprang away. The other sailors fell over themselves, fleeing the captain’s swinging sword. She slapped them with the flat of it like a switch on misbehaving children, quick and nimble as a cat. Gendry watched the silver arc of her blade as it descended again on the black-toothed sailor’s rear, and noticed the glint in her eye as the man shouted, rubbing his injured cheek. 

“Get back to work! If I find this sort of stupidity on deck again, I’ll give the lot of you more than a whipping! Go!”

Mumbling agreement, the sailors disappeared to their tasks, Black-tooth limping a little. Gendry eyed the captain, making sure not to turn his backside to her again.

Her eyes cut over to him. “Something special about that hammer?”

He gripped it tight with both hands. “My father gave it to me.” It wasn’t exactly true, but it was close enough.

She eyed it. “Is he dead?”

“Yes.”

Gendry wasn’t sure, but he thought maybe something in her eyes softened, grew sad. She drew her sword in close to her stomach, fingering the pommel. “They won’t try for it again. Call for Lommy or me next time. Or Weasel, second mate.” 

“Lommy’s—” Gendry looked around, then broke off with a twist of his mouth. Lommy was busy on the other end of the ship, determinedly not looking at them.

The captain seemed to know what he wanted to say. “Well. Like I said, they won’t try again.” She looked him over, a bit of a smirk pulling the corners of her mouth up. “Having a good first day at sea, then? Are you liking being a sailor?”

To his immense irritation, Gendry felt his cheeks heating up. “It’s rubbish.”

She laughed. “You’re just stupid, if you can’t figure out how to pull a rope and tie a knot.” 

Gendry bit his lip on the reply he wanted to make. His backside still stung. 

“Take another day to learn. Talk to Weasel, instead of Lommy. He’s a good sailor, but… well, Weasel’s the better teacher. Probably.” She shook her head, but her grin didn’t fall. “Good luck, blacksmith.”

***

The captain was right. Weasel was a much better teacher than Lommy had been, although Gendry had suffered another shock when he met the second mate. 

She was a girl too. A smaller one even than the captain, to Gendry’s disbelief. And she didn’t speak, directing him mostly with gestures. A few times she huffed, or sniffed, or grunted, but never did a word leave her lips. Gendry wondered why. Could she speak? Or did she feign muteness because her voice was too high to disguise? 

Somehow, she managed to coach him through the basics of trimming a sail. When she released him for the day, he went straight down to the galley. To his relief, no one was there but Hot Pie, his eyes closed and a beatific smile spread over his cheeks as he sniffed at the pot before him.

“Hot Pie?”

He jumped. “Oh, it’s you. Er—Genny?”

“Gendry.”

“Gendry, yeah. What can I do for you? This will be ready in just a few minutes.”

Gendry glanced at the pot. “Tell me about the captain.”

“Oh.” Hot Pie leaned over to glance down the aisle of hammocks. “I suppose, but we should make it quick—what do you want to know?”

“Lommy said he’d been trained by the First Sword of Braavos.”

“He was! He was the captain before Arry, in fact. Syrio Forel. Went after slaving ships, mostly, when they tried to smuggle through.”

“So what happened to him?”

Hot Pie shrugged. “Another ship attacked, and he didn’t make it out at the end.”

“So Arry took his place?”

“Oh no, no. No, those other pirates, they took us on board with them. It’s their ship we’re on now. Their old one, anyway.” 

Gendry frowned. “What happened to all of them, then?”

“Oh, they were terrible. Liked to hurt us. So Arry got us all together, real careful, and we mutinied. So now the ship’s ours, and Arry’s the captain.”

Gendry blinked at him. That slip of a girl had led a mutiny? Led a bunch of scrawny men and boys against pirates—and won?

“That what you wanted to know? Good, now taste this.” Hot Pie scooped up a spoonful of whatever was in the pot and shoved it at Gendry’s face. Surprised, he opened his mouth, and a steaming hot dollop of stew landed on his tongue. 

“I wish I just had some butter,” Hot Pie said mournfully, watching Gendry swallow painfully, his eyes watering. “It’s best with butter, but it’s not… it’s not bad, is it?”

“No,” said Gendry weakly, his tongue aching. “It’s not bad.”

***

Captain Arry came to Gendry the next morning, as he practiced knots on a spare length of rope Weasel had found for him. He didn’t notice her approach until her shadow fell over his hands. 

“Have any of the others tried anything again?”

Gendry squinted up at her, leaning over so her head blocked out the sun. “A few jokes, here and there. Nothing like last time.”

She nodded. “Good.” Then, after a moment, she added, “I came to ask you if you wanted to learn how to fight.”

Gendry frowned. “I did just fine, the other day—”

“You all flailed about like you’d been on the drink. I don’t think you’re a stupid as the rest of them. I think you could learn to actually do it properly.” 

He nodded at the thin sword at her waist. “With a sword like that?”

She fingered the pommel. “There is no other sword like this one,” she said quietly. Then, louder: “But we have a few spare swords that are bigger, normal Westerosi swords. Do you want to learn?”

He felt a pang in his chest. He had always wanted to learn to fight, it was true, but this was not how he’d hoped it would happen. Then again… those hopes had been dashed the day his father died. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll learn.”

“Good. Meet me on the quarterdeck an hour before dawn.” 

“Before—” 

She was already gone. 

***

Gendry dragged himself out of his hammock at the appointed time and went bleary-eyed to find the captain. He still did not have all of the sailors’ jargon down, but there didn’t seem to be many places that could sensibly be called a quarterdeck.

When he hauled himself out of the hatch, he saw her waiting by the wheel, one hand on her sword. There were few others on deck, mostly the remainder of the last watch from the night before. They nodded to Arry when they passed her, and mostly ignored Gendry as he made his way toward her, still stumbling every so often when the ship passed over a larger wave.

Arry wasted no time on greetings, only held out a sword toward him, hilt-first. A bit of a grin tugged at her lips and lit up her eyes. “Are you ready?”

He took the sword, feeling the heft of it in his palm. It wasn’t terribly made, but the balance wasn’t quite right, and it was much longer than the hammers he was used to swinging. “I suppose I am.”

She backed up a few steps, then one of her legs fell back and she drew her sword, the blade sliding free of her leather scabbard with only a low scrape, barely audible over the rush of the waves around them. He lifted his sword, too, clasping his other hand over the first. He shifted his feet, unsure where to plant them.

Her sword dropped a little. “No. Stand side-face, not straight on.”

“Side-face?”

“Like me. Sideways.”

“Then I can’t hold it properly.”

“Plenty of knights hold those with one hand. You can do it, too. You’re plenty strong enough.” 

He scowled, but adjusted. She spend another minute telling him how to place his feet, then said, “Now. Keep me from hitting you.”

“Wait a—”

Her sword was moving, and he barely moved in time to stop it. As soon as he did, there it went again, swinging in from another direction, and that time he wasn’t quick enough. The sword felt wrong in his hand, too slow, too long.

Arry checked the blow before it landed across his arm. “You’ll need to move your feet more. You’re not a tree.”

She began again, and he blocked a few more before she got through his guard. They went on in this way for half an hour, while the sun crested the horizon to their port side, and sailors began to trickle up from their hammocks. He never lasted through more than half a dozen of her strikes, although the longer he watched her, the more sure he felt that she was moving too slow, going easy on him. He supposed it was only right, as he’d never held a sword before outside of the forge, but it galled him a little nonetheless.

Finally, Gendry let his sword drop. “Can I try something else?”

Arry raised a brow. “Like what?”

Gendry laid the sword on the deck by the railing, out of the way, and pulled his hammer from the thong at his belt. It was heavy, too, but smaller, more dense, and he knew its weight better.

Arry eyed it doubtfully. “It’s too small to block anything. Even Needle.”

“Needle?” He glanced at her sword. It was a fitting name. “I can do it.”

“And if I hit the handle? I could cut the head right off.”

“You won’t. The handle’s metal underneath.”

She shrugged. “Fine. You can try it.” And she swung again. 

Without being weighed down by the sword, Gendry stepped aside, then met batted her next slash away. She kept moving, bringing her sword right back around toward his head, and he batted it away again. She scowled and struck again, again—five—six—seven times. A thrill ran through Gendry’s veins.

The eighth strike, however, landed across his ribcage, and Arry didn’t check its speed. Gendry grunted and fell back a few steps, almost dropping his hammer.

Arry eyed it disdainfully. “It’s not as good as a sword.”

“That was the best I did all morning.” 

“Still.” She chewed on her lip for a moment, watching him slip the hammer back onto his belt. “If you got a bigger one, an actual warhammer, maybe you’d like that better.”

A warhammmer. Gendry’s chest hurt at the thought, and he avoided her eyes. “I think I would.”

“Swords are still better.”

He looked up to catch the ghost of her grin before she turned away, already calling out orders to the sailors on deck.


	2. Chapter 2

Gendry spent the next several days in an ever-deepening haze of fatigue. He rose before dawn to practice with Arry, spent the mornings hauling himself about the ship after Weasel in an attempt to learn to sail, then spent most afternoons at chores around the ship—scrubbing the deck, maintaining the ropes, helping Hot Pie with the food. He’d collapse into his hammock at dusk and let the ship rock him to sleep. 

He would have guessed, if anyone had asked him, that working with a too-small crew on board a makeshift pirate vessel was difficult. What he would not have guessed was that he would enjoy himself—mostly. 

He didn’t like climbing about the rigging. His feet were meant to stay on solid ground—or solid wood, if ground weren’t available—and he didn’t like the air buffeting him about as he clung to a few uncomfortably thin ropes. Weasel laughed the first time she got him up into the lines, the closest he’d yet heard her come to speaking, but he just glared at her. He knew he must looked ridiculous—a big bull of a boy, his heavy arms wrapped around the narrow ropes. That didn’t mean he wanted anyone to enjoy themselves quite so much at his expense.

He did grow to like the sea, though, the pitch and roll of the ship. He liked the smell of the brine, and the crisp clip of the wind across the deck. He even liked the way the ship creaked as she tipped over the waves, as if she were speaking. 

His favorite part of it all, however, were his continuing lessons with the captain. 

She kept coming up with ways to surprise her. After a few days, when she taught him how to strike, he managed to knock her flat on her back. He’d paused, torn between triumph and concern, and in that second she’d flipped herself right back to her feet, her sword spinning, and forced him stumbling back against the rail.

“You’ve gotten better,” she told him then, her sword pointed at his chest. “But I still think you should use a sword instead.”

He tightened his grip on his hammer. “I’m good, thanks.”

She’d shrugged, said “Fine,” and motioned for him to take his stance so they could begin again.

This time, when her sword flew, it was faster than he’d ever seen it, and he realized with a start that she wasn’t holding back anymore. He could barely lift the hammer in time to stop her, and he only managed to do it at all for a few seconds.

He could tell he was too slow. He could see her sword moving, tinted gold with the light of the rising sun, and tried to step inside her guard as her arm rose. Like a cat she slipped away, her sword changing direction—but he was too heavy—he couldn’t stop himself moving toward where she had been—he tipped over, and with a clunk his head collided with the base of the steering wheel. The rest of him fell to the deck, followed a second later by his hammer. 

“Are you okay?” Arry’s sword rasped into its scabbard, and then her footsteps approached, her voice growing louder. “Gendry?”

“’M fine.” He sat up, wishing his head would stop spinning. 

Arry snorted. “You’re not.” 

Gendry tensed when her fingers touched his, lifting them away from his head. He squinted at her, his eyes watering. She knelt just next to him, peering at his forehead, her narrow fingers warm as they ran across it. The sun lit her eyes to silver.

“You’ll be okay. But we’re done for the day—and we’re done with that hammer.”

Gendry seized it off the deck. “I won’t—”

“No one’s going to try to take it from you, stupid. But it’s too small to use as a weapon. You could try a dagger if you like, but unless you get a warhammer in port—” She broke off. “That is, if you wanted to come back to the ship. To learn.”

Gendry blinked at her. He couldn’t think of much to say, except, “Would you be able to teach me? With a warhammer, not a sword?”

She leaned back onto her heels, resting her hand on the pommel of her sword. “I’ve never used one myself—it’d be far too heavy for me. But I know staffs, and spears. I think I could teach you some things. If you wanted to stay on.”

Gendry looked away. “Maybe.”

“We’ll see, then.” Arry pushed up to her feet and offered Gendry a hand. “For now, go below and rest. See if Hot Pie needs any help in the galley later.” 

***

Gendry didn’t think he felt hurt enough to go back to his hammock, but the galley was crowded with sailors clamoring for food before they headed abovedeck for the morning’s work. Gendry had to admit that the thought of their noise made his head hurt a little more, so he found a seat among the cargo, leaning out of sight against a crate. He pulled his hammer from his belt, leaning it on his legs before him.

Arry was right—it wasn’t suited to combat. He could see chips here and there where her sword had collided with it, on the handle and head both. At least it was a small sword, he thought, and not some great heavy knight’s weapon. 

He used to want to swing those. He’d spent enough hours with them in Tobho’s shop, sweating over the forge as he learned how to make them. Like all the other Flea Bottom boys optimistic enough for dreams, he’d dreamt of being a knight. 

It had been a long time since then. And ever since Robert took him in at the Red Keep, he’d wanted to swing a hammer instead.

He’d planned to make one, while he worked the forges on Dragonstone. But there had been no time, as Cersei’s army closed in and all the other men needed repairs or new swords and armor. Gendry scowled. Some good all that had done them. The Lannisters killed them all anyway, like as not.

Should he stay on the ship, then? He didn’t have anywhere else to go. His mother and father were both gone. Renly was too, and most likely Stannis. Even Davos—Gendry didn’t want to think what might have happened to him. 

He could probably find work as a smith at whatever port they put in to. There he could swing this hammer as much as he wanted, and have made strong shining steel at the end of it. That was probably the best choice, for all of them. Gods knew he had shown no great gift for sailing. 

Soon the voices from the galley had gone, dispersed among the ship as they went to their work. Gendry emerged from the mass of crates and headed toward the stern to find Hot Pie bobbing about the galley, cleaning up after breakfast. Gendry was used to helping him by now, so he set to it. Hot Pie chattered at him, not needing much more than grunts of acknowledgment to keep going. 

He had learned quite a bit more from listening to Hot Pie. The mutiny had been recent, only a couple of weeks ago, and the ship hadn’t put in to port or taken a prize since. And evidently, no one else had any clue that Arry and Weasel were girls. 

A small voice whispered in the back of Gendry’s head: maybe you could stay. This is interesting. You might like to stay on and see what happens. 

He pushed it away. Perhaps Arry had been right, and he did need rest.

A flurry of loud thumping overhead drew Gendry from his thoughts, and cut off Hot Pie’s voice right in the middle of some story about a couple of knights fighting outside a tavern in Flea Bottom. His cheeks looked pale. “Better go up and see what it is,” he told Gendry, still staring up at the ceiling. “I hope it’s not a battle. Don’t none of us have armor here.” 

“A battle?”

Hot Pie blinked at him. “We are a pirate ship,” he said. “Sometimes pirate ships have battles.”

Gendry bolted through the door and across the cargo hold, and threw himself up out of the hatch. Sailors ran about the deck, arming themselves, bringing the ship about. Arry’s voice rang above it all. 

“Look sharp! All hands on deck! You, where’s your sword? Are you going to fight them with your fingernails? Bring her about, as close as we can get!” 

Gendry leapt out of the way of a couple of sailors, grim-faced with swords in their hands, and promptly ran into another. The man swore at him, but Gendry ducked away rather than listen, weaving his way to Arry on the quarterdeck. 

“What’s going on?”

She glanced down at him. “We’re coming up on a Lannister ship.”

Gendry’s stomach lurched. “Lannisters?”

She nodded at his hammer. “I suppose you can try using that if you want to fight, but don’t blame me if you lose an arm. If you don’t want to fight, get belowdecks with Hot Pie, and stay there.”

Gendry pulled his hammer from his belt. “I’ll fight.”

She met his eye just for a moment, nodded again, and drew her sword. “We’re almost on them.”

Gendry joined the men ranged along the length of the ship, his heart pounding. Arry paced before the line, spinning her sword to warm up. He gripped his hammer in one sweaty hand, and wondered wildly for a moment if it would fly out of his grip on the first swing. He gripped it tighter and squinted at the ship.

It was a small, one-masted thing, and he could only see a handful of men on board, scrambling about to arm themselves as they gave up trying to outrun the pirate ship. Gendry frowned, surprised they would chase down such small prey. He supposed their own crew was shorthanded, but he couldn’t imagine this little thing to be much of a prize.

Lommy, standing next to him, leaned over. “You ever had a fight before? A real one, not like the other day with Timmon and them.”

“Timmon?”

“With the black teeth.”

“Right. Him.”

“Well? Have you?”

In his mind’s eye, he saw smoke rising from the Red Keep, and later from Dragonstone. He saw Lannisters in red and gold cut down one of his guards, while the other shouted for him to run and two more bundled him from the castle. “No. I haven’t.” 

“You nervous?”

“No.” They were silent for a moment, before Gendry asked, “Why are we attacking them, anyway? That doesn’t look likely to have any gold.”

Arry passed before them as he asked the question, and stopped. “Isn’t killing Lannisters enough?”

He looked down at her. A gust of wind blew tendrils of her hair across her face, and her flinty stare was fixed on the Lannister ship. 

They drew alongside the Lannisters, and at Arry’s shout a few of the men leapt across with ropes. The rest surged forward on their heels with a chorus of wild shouts. Gendry went with them, carried right along over the railing, landing face-to-face with a Lannister sailor.

He raised his hammer, yelling inarticulately, and brought it down hard on the man’s head. His blood streamed down his twisted face to darken his red tunic, but Gendry barely saw it. He turned away immediately, letting the man fall behind him. 

There really weren’t many men aboard. Gendry dodged one man’s spear, sending him stumbling past right into another pirate’s sword. He turned in time to slam the next spear away, then hit that man square in his chest. Blood flew from his mouth to spatter on Gendry’s face, and he flinched away from it, but then Arry appeared beside him to strike the killing blow straight through the man’s heart. 

And with that it was over. Only a couple of Lannisters still struggled as Timmon and one of his friends dragged the bleeding Lannister captain to Arry’s feet and threw him down on the deck. 

Gendry stepped back, breathing hard. He wiped the blood from his face, breathing through his mouth to avoid the sharp tang of its scent on the wind. They were all spattered with it, though none of the pirates had fallen. Gendry glanced down at the bodies around him, and then looked quickly away. Part of him—a rather large part—wanted to throw up. 

As for the rest of him… his blood seemed to sing in his veins. He felt strong, as if he could fight for hours more without tiring. He wondered if this was how his father had felt, when he’d gone to battle. 

Arry was staring down her nose at the Lannister captain. He tried to glare back up at her, but his chin trembled. 

“Will you yield?” she asked him, her tone easy and polite, as if asking him to pass the wine at dinner. 

The man hesitated. “We—”

“Look around you,” Arry said. “Who is we?”

A few of the Lannister sailors still moved, groaning as they did. A couple seemed to have thrown down their own weapons, and stood with their arms held behind their backs by Arry’s men. 

Arry leaned down close to the other captain’s face. Her next words were soft, and Genry wondered if anyone else heard them.

“Do you think Cersei gives a shit about any of you?” she whispered. “Do you think she’ll lose a moment’s sleep over your deaths? Do you think she’ll even know about them?” She stood back up and leveled her sword at the man’s throat. “Now—do you yield?”

The man swallowed, his throat dimpling around her sword’s point as it bobbed. “Yes.”

Arry sheathed her sword. “Bring everything over to our side, boys,” she shouted across the deck. “It’s all ours now!”

A bellowing roar answered her, Gendry’s voice among them. 

***

Later that evening the nauseated part of Gendry won out, and he found himself leaning over the ship’s railing, puking into the dark water. The sailors on the night shift chuckled at him, but Gendry didn’t think they meant to insult him. A couple of them even clapped him on the back as they cracked their jokes, and he found himself wondering whether they were starting to like him. 

After he had emptied what seemed to be the entire contents of his stomach into the ocean, he stayed a while at the railing, letting the breeze cool his sweaty face. He didn’t notice at first when Arry came to stand beside him. 

“Your hammer wasn’t terrible today.”

He started. “Oh. I mean—no, it wasn’t.”

“Something bigger would still be better. Those men were barely soldiers.”

He scowled. “They still had weapons, and they would have stuck me with them if I hadn’t hit them first.”

“Anyone can have a weapon and stick someone with them. That doesn’t make them a soldier.”

“I mean, yes, but—”

“You did well though. Overall.” 

He paused, surprised. “Thank you.” He paused again, then asked, “Would you have attacked them if they hadn’t been Lannisters?”

She’d been staring out at the horizon, a silver line between the dark sky and the dark waters. Now she looked up at him. “Why?”

“Before it started, you said it was enough just that they were Lannisters. You don’t like the Lannisters?”

“No one likes the Lannisters, except the Lannisters.”

He snorted. “That’s true enough.”

“Does it bother you that I attacked them because they’re Lannisters?”

He didn’t really have to think about it. “No. No, it doesn’t.”

“See?” She turned away, adding over her shoulder, “You don’t like the Lannisters, either.”

That night, after he returned to his hammock, Gendry dreamed of Cersei kneeling defeated in front of Arry, her hands held up for mercy. His father’s head smiled down from its pike atop the walls of the Red Keep, and Gendry smiled back. 

***

They pulled into port a few days after that, somewhere in Dorne. Gendry didn’t know much about the geography of Dorne—or of almost anywhere, for that matter—and even though a couple of the sailors told him the name of the town, he still hadn’t the slightest idea where they were.

He stumbled when he set food on the dock, and a couple of the sailors laughed at him. “You’ve got to get your land-legs back now, blacksmith,” called one of Timmon’s friends as they pushed past. 

Gendry muttered some choice words at their backs and sat for a while atop a barrel, hoping the pier would stop pitching under his feet. The dockworkers moved around him like water, hauling cargo and shouting back and forth in their lilting Dornish accents.

“Are you ill?”

He jumped and opened his eyes to see Arry standing in front of him. “What?”

“You look pale. Are you ill?”

“No, just—the pier was—I have to get my land-legs back, they said.”

She nodded. “Well, I just wanted to tell you—we’ll be in port here for a few days. Three, maybe. If you decide to stay on.” 

“Right.” He’d have to go find a smith in town, see about getting work. 

Arry turned away, but before she left, Gendry found himself saying, “And I can? Decide to stay on?”

She looked over her shoulder. “If you want. We need sailors.”

“Why?”

She frowned, turning back to face him. “Because we don’t have enough—”

“No, why do you need a crew? To keep pirating?”

She folded her arms. “And if I do?”

“The war’s ending. It’ll be harder to do what you’re doing when all the soldiers are freed up from fighting. They’ll start cracking down on pirates again.”

“The war may be ending, but Cersei’s won it. It’ll be her soldiers out after us, and they’re the ones I want to kill.”

Gendry remembered what she’d said, the day they took him on board. As long as you’re not with the Lannisters. “Did you lose someone? In the war?”

Something in her face closed, a door slamming before him. “Everyone lost someone in the war.”

“Of course they did, but they don’t all go off trying to kill every Lannister sailor they can find.”

“If you don’t like it, don’t come along,” she snapped. 

“I didn’t say—” 

She raised an eyebrow at him, and he bit back whatever else was about to come out of his mouth. 

Had he liked it? The fighting had certainly gotten his blood flowing—but did the fact that they were Lannisters have any effect on him? Was he glad to have killed—even if it was the soldiers of the family who had destroyed his?

They stood there for a long moment, eyes locked. Finally he said, “Wouldn’t it be better to fight against the actual Lannisters? Not the poor bastards they pay.”

“They made the choice to take Lannister gold. And…” She set her jaw. “All in time.” 

“You mean you want to go after—”

“Don’t go shouting about it,” Arry hissed. 

He pitched his voice lower. “—after Ser Jaime? And the Imp, and the Queen?”

Arry pretended she hadn’t heard. “Anyway, remember. Three days.” Then she was gone, vanishing like a shadow into the throngs of sailors and dock hands.

Gendry sought out the few smiths in town after that. None of them were on par with Tobho Mott, of course, or with even the smith on Dragonstone. Gendry supposed it was a small city, and after he’d worked a while he’d have the coin to move on to a larger one, with better smiths and more to learn… but he found himself glancing out toward the coast every few minutes, where Arry’s ship lay in her berth. 

He thought about going back to his hammock there that night, letting the waves lull him to sleep. Instead, he went to a tavern, drank a few ales, and slept upstairs—where he dreamed of water, all around him, sparkling green under silver beams of light. 

***

For two days, Gendry wandered the town, trying to keep himself from the docks. It was a vain effort. Whenever his mind wandered he found himself veering closer to the shore, until he found his focus again and, growling, directed himself back inland.

His thoughts for those two days were clear, even if his steps weren’t: he would stay here and smith. He’d had too much trouble in his life without throwing in with a band of pirates too stupid to tell that their captain was a girl. He was good at smithing, and he would do well here, learn anything anyone would teach him. He would stay.

The morning of the third day found him sprinting to the docks, though he scowled the whole way. As soon as the pier came into view, he craned his neck looking for her ship—he’d overslept that morning, intending to stay right up until the moment his feet had hit the inn floor. She hadn’t left yet, had she?

She hadn’t. Her ship was still there, its sails looking fresher, its sailors looking better fed, and—

He slowed, trying to catch his breath as he passed the bow. White lettering ran across it, new-bright. Winter.

Arry grinned when she saw him standing by the gangplank. “Coming with us, then?”

He waited for a couple of sailors to pass, carrying barrels of water, then followed them on board. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

“If you’re going so sound so angry about it, maybe you should stay.”

“I’m coming,” he snapped.

She laughed, and he felt the tension in his shoulders ease a little. Half of his brain kept screaming that this was a stupid idea. The rest of it was just enjoying the sea air. 

Arry elbowed him. “Well, if you’re coming, you’re a member of my crew, and my crew has work to do.” She nodded at the stacks of barrels still waiting on the dock. “Get to it.”

“Yes, captain.”


End file.
